Page 12 of The Baby Hex
“SHIT!” Preston’s voice rang out through the dark forests surrounding Moonglow Cabin.
“Mother fucker,” I hissed under my breath.
What in the name of the old fangs were those shifters up to? Why not just stay in the car as I asked?
Chapter Six
Mori
This time Dern knocked the air out of me when he yoinked me out of my body. I panted on his Other World kitchen floor while a woman with pointed ears and wild hair that made a curtain around us and eyes that whispered of cruel deeds straddled over me.
“Give him some space, Floria,” Dern sighed as a man with big, brown phoenix wings pulled the dead elf off me.
“Thanks, Ormund. But what in the fuck happened to sending messages? I thought you said this would happen once!” I stared daggers at Dern who sat at his table sipping tea as if nothing out of the ordinary was going on.
“Well, I decided to do things differently than the Postcard Men who recruited me. Besides, this is a secret. A big, fat, juicy secret. Writing about it and hoping that you’re the one who finds it was too much to hope for. I’m not sloppy like that. I didn’t live as long as I did being sloppy like that. Ormund, love, take her back to her room. She’s caused enough trouble for one night.”
Ormund was Dern’s true-mate and even in death they made googly eyes at each other. It sort of stung to watch them look at each other. Even dead men had better love lives than I did.
“That sort of hurt,”my wolf sounded off in my thoughts.
It had hurt. A lot. The dead elf woman – whatever her name was – had body slammed me as soon as I materialized in the kitchen.
“I waited until you were sitting down in the car alone,” Dern said.
“I wasn’t alone. Preston was there.”
“See, someone to make sure no one kidnaps your empty body,” Dern nodded. “You accepted this role. You were excited about it. No one ever said it was going to be easy.”
“Well, you didn’t tell me you’d make it into a contact sport.”
“I honestly didn’t think Floria would slam into you. She’s been very anti-touch. Doesn’t want to smell like dogs and all that. You know how bigots are. Now, get your tail off the floor and join me for some tea. The longer you lay around down there wallowin’ around the longer your body is empty, and I know how much you hate that.”
“You’re an asshat sometimes, Dern,” I grumbled and rolled over before pushing myself onto my feet and joining him at the kitchen table.
Dern’s edges were never going to be completely smoothed out. Not even death could do that. Still, he was gracious enough to have me a cup of tea, steeped and ready.
“I do what I need to do. It’s the only way I know how to be,” Dern nodded. “Drink up. It’ll keep you from being achy when you get back to the world of the living. She got you good.”
I took a long, slow swallow of the hot tea. Cinnamon and vanilla danced on my tongue and warmed me up as it traveled into my stomach. Its soothing warmth spread throughout my body. I tried to ask again about the dead elf but Dern nodded for me to finish my tea first.
“How quaint. Gets us attacked and then tries to play gracious host,”my wolf grumbled as I finished drinking the tea.
“Now, tell me who the hell she is,” I said, fighting off the urge to slap his table.
“Floria of the Meadow Elves,” Dern shrugged.
“Meadow Elves?” I asked.
I wasn’t sure of Crilus’s dead grandmother’s name, but I knew the clan. Everyone knew the clan. The old elven clans were so entwined that almost every elf alive was either somehowdescended from one of them or had ancestors who fought against them.
“Yes, her. She’s the one who went to war because Creon wouldn’t go home and make babies with a mate of her choosing. She killed her own mate and tortured her kids on a psychological level. A real Mommy-Knows-Best-Bitch,” Dern nodded.
“Why is she here and not rotting in Frost’s Pit?” I asked, crinkling my nose and suddenly wanting to wash my spirit in the sink to get any of her lingering darkness off me before I dragged it home to my body.
“Well,” Dern leaned back in his chair and stretched his legs out under the table. “She was in the Pit. Frost and Juda think it’s high time she learned her lesson in a hands on way. She’s going to be reborn a wolf. Well, a wolf-elf. The Crow King probably won’t give her that part of the genetics but she’s going to be reborn and she’s going to live as what she hates. Hopefully, it breaks her big brain enough that when that life is over she knows not to be a bigot.”
“Wait? What? Is that even ethical? It’s like reincarnating Ni as a storm because ---”
